Big Rock Finish: S.N.A.K. – 6 Months of Sundays

I’ll for now ignore the blaring grammatical error of using the number 6 instead of spelling the word Six out when it is the first word in a sentence. Then again it might just be me being far too anal.

I’ll warn you now, that if you pop this disk into your CD-rom you’ll be hit with a video-montage of the making of the album. SNAK banked on people popping their CD into their computer, and they bet on a winning horse. The videos are really amusing, seeing the guys doing what band people do, record, sit around, make fun of each other. It also gives a video of a live performance, and gives you an idea of what to expect from their live shows.

I will classify SNAK as a rock band. And not just because of Dave’s (formerly) long hair. The songs are catchy, sometimes danceable (at live shows they will demand dancing) and are songs I have no problem singing along to, (unless band members are in front of me.)

Some of my favourite parts of songs are the bits between songs. Things that sound like machine messages, random voices, and phrases recorded for no reason but were funny. And there’s lots of them in here. All of the songs are fun with lyrics that may or may not make any sense to me. But with a band that uses a cartoon/stuffed monkey as a mascot, I don’t think I care if the lyrics make any sense.

This CD is kept in my car at all times, and is actually really good for driving long distances since it’s a full 13 track album. That just means I won’t get sick of the songs too quickly, nor need to be fumbling with my CD player while driving 100mph down the highway with my left knee. If I threw house parties I would pop it into my stereo system to play on random, and if I still went to the gym I would bring it with me because even the slower tempo songs are songs I could work out to.

Big Rock Finish: S.N.A.K. @ Smiling Buddha Bar

So the “post Chrstmas, pre-new-years” show for Strange Noises and Kismet (mostly known as S.N.A.K.) (www.snakbiz.com) was on December 29th 2006 at Smiling Buddha Bar. Smiling Buddha is, in my opinion, becoming known as the little rock bar in Toronto. I’ve known so many bands to play there, and have been to a large number of shows in a very short amount of time. I think they’ll host just about anyone, and it’s a very wide and varying collection of artists who will play there. It’s small, and pretty out of the way at I think it’s College and Dovercort in Toronto, complete with liberal use of a smoke machine.

The band starts off this show (as with every show) with a round of shots. Oh tradition… And started the set. I know them as playing lots of fun upbeat rock songs, and would justify myself in calling themselves pop. Not extremely pop, just slightly pop, since the songs are so fun, and often silly in their lyrical content.

About the third song, during their self-described “dance number” something decided to blow out. Leaving all of the mics, and most of the guitars and the bass silent through the sound system. Being a band to not give up, the drummer, Ian, and “Wee One” Alex on guitar, continued the now infamous “extended drum solo” version of their song “Magnificent Twist” until the sound tech was able to turn everything back on. Definite fun times.

Sound problems did not cease however. The music once again cut out at another song, and while baffled, Tynur, the lead singer decides to finish the song by shouting at the crowd without the added comfort of a microphone. Again the sound tech is puzzled. Seeing as how the microphones are not on by the end of that song, Tynur then decides that it’s high time for another sing-along, and SNAK plays a cover for everyone to sing to.

The sound problem ended up being equipment from the bar, something they had kept shorting out half of everything on stage. To work around this issue, they decided to turn the monitors around to face the audience for vocals, and that would stop shorting out the circuit. Of course, that meant the band were now flying pretty blind as to who was singing what since they can’t hear anything on stage.

The show finished, lots of giggles ensued because of the problems, but I would still consider the show a success. The show was fun, silly, unexpected, and upbeat. Just like SNAK.